A Killing Thing
by melremade
Summary: He always thought he had been so good at seeing through people's masks. Yet all this time, he had been unaware that she had been wearing one. But her mask was different. It wasn't like his. It wasn't to hide away her anger. No, she wore her mask to hide how damaged she was. Blake/OC
1. Prologue

_**A Killing Thing**_** by melremade**

**Summary: Loss was nothing new to Lucy Thomas. She had experienced more than her fair share. But she had learned a long time ago that anger would only ruin her. **

**Rating: M**

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**The Dark Knight Rises**_** or any of its characters.**

* * *

"_**Anger is a killing thing: it kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him." – Louis L'amour**_

**Prologue**

Gordon faltered in the doorway of the school's front office as he saw Lucy sitting in one of the chairs, her backpack at her feet as she dejectedly read a book. He was about to shatter her world and he could no longer prolong the inevitable, after all, he had already spent at least twenty minutes in his squad car gathering up the courage to walk into the school.

"Can I help you, Officer?" the woman at the front desk asked as she saw him standing there and Lucy looked up from her book before putting it away and sitting up straighter.

"I'm Jim Gordon. I'm here for Lucy Thomas. I'm her father's partner," he answered and the woman seemed to sense his somber mood as her eyes widened slightly.

"Is everything alright?" she asked quietly and Gordon glanced at Lucy who was watching him curiously. He looked back at the woman and gave her the smallest shake of his head. She softly gasped before looking at Lucy, who was clearly growing confused. "What about her mother?"

"She's on a business trip in Chicago," Gordon replied softly. "We've already called her and she's on her way home. She'll be back tonight."

"I'll give you two some privacy," she said as she grabbed her coffee cup and left her desk, leaving the officer and the ten-year-old girl alone. Taking a deep breath for courage, Gordon took the seat next to Lucy. He nervously wrung his hands together and as he looked down at them, he couldn't erase the image of his partner's blood coating them.

"Hi, Jim," Lucy finally said, breaking him from his trance and as he looked to her, and he couldn't help but think that with her dark brown eyes and light blonde hair, she looked like the picture of innocence.

"Hey, Lucy," he managed to reply and he was forced to clear his throat.

"Where's my dad? He's late picking me up. Did he forget about me?" Lucy asked, visibly upset at the thought.

It took all he had to keep himself from coming undone at her question. If there was one thing Michael Thomas would never do, it was forget about his daughter. And as Gordon had held onto the man in his dying moments, his final act was to make sure she would be watched over.

* * *

"_J-Jim," Michael gasped as he held tightly onto Gordon's free hand, the hand that was not fruitlessly applying pressure to the bullet wound in his abdomen._

"_Just hang on, Mike," Gordon urged as he felt the panic racing through his veins. "The ambulance is on the way. You're going to be fine. Just stay with me. I promise I'm going to get you home. I don't care what it takes, I'll get you back home to your beautiful wife and that bright daughter."_

_Another tear fell down the dying man's cheek at the mention of his family and he shut his eyes tightly as he felt another blinding pain shoot through his body._

"_She's so smart, just like her mother," Michael sobbed, his grip growing tighter on Gordon's hand. "Because she doesn't get that from me."_

"_I won't argue you with you on that," Gordon managed to joke through his tears and Michael laughed before sharply inhaling at the pain it caused._

"_Asshole," he muttered. "Literally adding insult to injury."_

"_I'll make it up to you later," he promised. "I'll sneak you in a beer at the hospital."_

"_Better not, Annie would kill you," Michael told him and Gordon felt the corner of his lips turn up slightly at the threat. "Jim, you got to promise me something."_

"_Anything," he replied without a moment of hesitation._

"_Watch out for them," Michael whispered as the pain intensified._

"_I won't need to. You'll be there to do it yourself," Gordon argued and Michael managed to shake his head. _

"_I won't. And they'll need you. You're a good man, James Gordon. If I trust anyone with my family, it's you," he said and Gordon felt another tear fall down his face before his head shot up as he heard the faint sound of sirens._

"_They're almost here, Michael," Gordon exclaimed as he looked down the street, praying for the ambulance to turn the corner. "Can't you hear them?"_

"_I won't see Lucy grow up," Michael sobbed fearfully at the realization. "I won't get to see her graduate from high school or college. I won't walk her down the aisle. I won't get to become a grandfather."_

_Any pain he was feeling from where the bullet had ripped through his stomach was easily outmatched by the thought of never getting to see his daughter grow up. He would never see her again._

"_Don't say that," Gordon pleaded as he looked down at the man. "You will see her grow up. You'll get to do all of those things. You'll get to help her with her science fair projects and threaten her first boyfriend and you'll get to cry at her wedding."_

"_No, I won't," he murmured and Gordon's heart dropped as he felt Michael's grip on his hand begin to loosen. "So you'll have to do it."_

"_Michael-"_

"_Promise me, Jim!" he interrupted, although his voice was starting to sound weaker. "Promise me you'll watch over her, that you'll protect her, that you'll be there to do everything I won't be able to."_

"_Michael-"_

"_Promise me," Michael repeated and after a moment, Gordon nodded._

"_I promise," he said as Michael's eyes closed and he began to grow limp. "I promise, Mike."_

_The ambulance finally rounded the corner, but by the time they had stopped and the paramedics had jumped out, it was too late. Michael Thomas was dead in his arms._

* * *

"Jim?" Lucy asked and he buried his face in his trembling hands. "Where's my dad?"

Gordon hurriedly wiped his tears from his eyes as he sat back up and looked at her. He zipped his jacket up further to hide the blood stains on his shirt from Lucy. It was bad enough that she was about to learn her father's fate, she didn't need to have the image of both of them covered in his blood.

"Lucy, something happened today," he started gently and Lucy's eyes grew wide. "Your dad was shot."

"But he's okay, right? He's at the hospital? The doctors will fix him, right?" she asked, the questions coming out in a flurry. Gordon took a deep breath as he put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Lucy, your dad didn't make it," he whispered and he could see the tears quickly form in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"No, but Daddy's one of the good guys. The good guys always beat the bad guys," she protested as she shook her head furiously, her blonde hair whipping around as she did so. Gordon didn't know what to say. While that logic held up in stories and fairy tales, it didn't hold up in Gotham.

"Not always, Lucy. Not this time," he choked out and before he knew what was happening, Lucy had wrapped her arms around his middle and buried her face in his jacket as she began to sob.

* * *

A/N: Well, that's the prologue. I just wanted to give some background before diving into the actual story. I've been mulling this idea over in my head for a while and inspiration finally struck. I'd really love to know what you think or if you're interested. You can expect the first chapter soon!


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

She was having trouble trying to sort through her emotions as she watched as the casket was lowered into the ground. Yet what struck her most was the growing sense of numbness spreading throughout her body and taking hold. It shouldn't have been surprising; numbness was a prime characteristic of shock and grief. Suddenly, she sensed someone standing by her side and she didn't have to look up from the tombstone to know who it was.

"It's just us now, Jim," Lucy sighed as she buried her hands into the pockets of her black coat. She glanced at him to see the same indiscernible expression that had been on her own face just a few moments earlier. "We're all each other has."

"As long as I've still got you, I consider myself lucky," he replied as he glanced at her and she smiled softly as she looped her arm through his and rested her head against his shoulder.

"You're all the family I need," she confessed quietly, her gaze now back on the open grave. "You certainly did more for me than she ever did."

Jim was quiet at her words. He could hear the hint of bitterness in her voice and he found that he was disappointed in himself. If her father had seen how Lucy and Annie's relationship had eroded, Jim was sure that it would have broken the man. He should have done more.

"She loved you, Lucy. She really did," he told her, attempting to comfort her and Lucy remained silent. "She was your mother and she loved you."

"She had a funny way of showing it," Lucy muttered and Jim sighed heavily.

"She just…" he trailed off, unsure of how to continue. "I think that she just lost a part of herself somewhere along the way."

"Why do you defend her?" Lucy asked abruptly and Jim was slightly surprised by the question. "She treated you like shit and you're standing here defending her."

"Because she's your mother," he told her firmly. "And regardless of whatever problems she had with me, I promised your father I would watch over both of you."

Lucy silently stared at the open grave, unsure of how to reply.

"And she only treated me like that because she blamed me for what happened to your father," he sighed as he lifted his glasses to tiredly rub his eyes and Lucy was suddenly hit with the memory of her father's funeral when her mother had gotten drunk at the wake and started to yell at Jim.

"Well, she had a lot of problems," she snorted with a small shake of her head and Jim glanced at her.

"Are you still angry with her?" he asked cautiously and there was such a long pause that Jim wasn't sure she had heard his question.

"This whole argument her and I have been having for so long? Well, I guess I've won," she finally whispered, her voice cracking and Jim saw the tear that made it's way down her cheek.

"But it's a pyrrhic victory, isn't it?" he pointed out gently and Lucy nodded as she wiped away her solitary tear.

"I've won, but not really," she murmured, another tear quickly replacing the one she had just wiped away, only to be followed by a few more and her shoulders started to shake as she began to quietly sob. Jim was quick to wrap his arms around her as he saw her begin to break down.

"Jim, I'd give anything not to have won," she cried into his chest and he placed a fatherly kiss on the top of her head as he rubbed his hand in soothing circles on her back.

"I know," he whispered into her blonde hair, which along with her brown eyes, made her look like a mirror image of her mother when she was Lucy's age. "I'm sorry I didn't protect you from this."

She wordlessly shook her head, letting him know that she disagreed with him. She stayed wrapped in his arms as her sobs began to die down.

"Hey, Jim?" she eventually mumbled, her voice coming out muffled by the fabric of his jacket.

"Yeah?" he replied as she pulled away slightly and looked up at him, her eyes red and her cheeks tearstained.

"That promise you made to my dad?" she asked timidly.

"Yeah, what about it?" he gently encouraged and she briefly looked over at her mother's tombstone before returning his gaze.

"It's just," she started nervously and she bit her lip. "It's just you've done a really god job."

It felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders at her words. Everything that had been on his mind, from the stress of the divorce to the guilt that had been plaguing him and was quickly growing as Dent Day drew closer, it all melted away the moment he heard Lucy's statement. Because while everything else he touched seemed to be turning to ashes around him, she was the one person he felt he had done right by.

"Come on. I'll take you to dinner," Jim offered and she sniffled softly as she looked up at him with slightly red eyes.

"How about a drink instead?" she asked and he faintly smiled.

"I think a drink sounds perfect," he said with a nod and she pulled out of his embrace before making her way towards the tombstone, stopping once she was right in front of the slab of marble. She stood there silently for a few moments, trying to piece together her thoughts.

"Sorry I let you down, Mom," she whispered quietly, her voice void of emotion, before she took a deep breath and moved to the tombstone next to it. It was much older than her mother's, but no less cared for. She ran her fingers over the cold marble silently.

"He'd be proud of you," Jim told her, interrupting her thoughts and she glanced over her shoulder at him before looking back down at her father's tombstone.

"Are you sure about that?" she asked softly, blinking back the tears that were starting to form again.

"Absolutely," he answered without any hesitation and Lucy tapped her fingers against the tombstone a few times before nodding slowly. He seemed to sense her reluctance to believe him. "I know he'd be proud of you because I am."

"Really?" she breathed out as she looked at him, and he could see the desperation in her expression.

"Every second of every day," he said and after a moment, a smile spread over her face.

"Thanks, Jim," she managed to reply, her voice shaking with emotion and she quickly wiped away a tear that was threatening to fall. He returned her smile wordlessly and she turned back around. She kissed her fingertips before pressing them gently to the marble. With another deep breath, she faced Jim with a watery smile. "How about that drink?"

* * *

"This shouldn't take long," Jim told her as they got out of his car and walked towards the station. She shrugged as he held open the door for her before walking through it himself.

"I really don't mind. Take as long as you need," she said as they walked past the front desk, both of them saying hello to the officer sitting there.

"No, no, I just need to check in on a couple of things and grab a couple of files," he assured her as she followed him through the precinct, which was bustling with activity.

"You know, you seem to spend much more time here than you do in that fancy office of yours over at City Hall," she observed dryly as she side stepped a large stack of file boxes. Jim grinned as he looked back at her.

"And give up the insanity of this place? Never," he told her with a laugh.

"It's just nice to know that you still like to spend time rubbing elbows with us commoners," she teased, making him softly laugh again before they stopped outside an office.

"If you just want to wait out here, I'll be right out." he told her and she nodded. "You'll be alright by yourself?"

"Really, Jim?" she scoffed. "I'll be fine by myself for five minutes. Besides we're in a _police station_. What could possibly happen to me here? Go do what you need to do and I'll just go grab some coffee."

"Sorry, sorry," he said, holding up his hands before walking into the office and Lucy softly smiled after him. She gave a small sigh before making her way over towards the table in the corner of the room where the below par coffee was. She quickly poured herself a cup, adding in her cream and sugar, licking off the stirrer before throwing it away, an old habit she had picked up from her roommate in college.

She picked up the styrofoam cup from the table and gently blew on her coffee before taking a small sip. Despite the lackluster taste, she allowed herself a moment to enjoy the warmth of the drink before turning around and moving to walk back towards the office Jim had gone into. However, before she could do so, she had bumped right into somebody and dropped her cup, spilling her coffee onto the floor.

"Shit," she mumbled as she took a step back, trying to keep her shoes from winding up further in the puddle of brown liquid.

"I'm so sorry!" the person she had bumped into blurted out and she looked up at him with a slight grimace.

"No, don't worry. I should have been paying attention," she assured him and she took a brief moment to look him over. He had a youthful face, with deep brown eyes and he was very clean-cut. She could easily tell that he hadn't been doing this long and the thought made her softly smile.

"It's my fault. Are you okay?" he asked, his words coming out rushed and she gave him another smile at his concern.

"I'm fine, really. Just a little spilt coffee," she told him as she grabbed some napkins off the table and knelt down to begin cleaning her mess.

"No, let me get it," the officer protested as he knelt beside her with his own stack of napkins. "It's bad enough I spilled your coffee everywhere. I don't want to be responsible for ruining that pretty dress, too."

She was grateful for the way her hair shielded her face as she leaned forward and continued to mop up the spill because it kept him from seeing the red tint on her cheeks at his compliment. It had been a while since she had received a compliment from someone other than the usual drunks who managed to find their way into the ER where she worked on a regular basis.

"I don't mind," she said as she picked up the now empty cup from the floor and tossed it into the trash bin along with the wad of wet napkins in her hand. The spill now cleared, the both of them stood up and he discarded his own mess of sopping napkins before drying off his hands on a clean one.

"Well, then thank you for your help," he told her with a smile and she noted the dimples on his cheeks. "I'm John Blake."

"Lucy Thomas," she replied, shaking his outstretched hand as she bit back her own smile at the formality. Once she let go of his hand, she tilted her head to the side and slightly narrowed her eyes as she looked him over curiously. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"I don't know. Have you ever been arrested?" he asked, wanting to smack his forehead at his stupid joke. However, she surprised him by softly laughing.

"No, at least not recently," she teased with a wink. "But I'm serious. You look really familiar."

"I'm not sure. Maybe you've seen me around here?" he suggested as he scratched the back of his head and she slowly shook her head.

"No, I don't come here that often," she shook her head and she seemed to suddenly realize how she knew him. "You come to the ER, don't you?"

"Gotham General? Oh, now that you mention it, you do look familiar. Maybe I've seen you there?" he asked and she snapped her fingers before pointing at him with a nod and a satisfied smile.

"That's what it is. I work in the ER. I think I've seen you and your partner around a few times," she said as she brushed her hair behind her ear.

"Yep, that's probably it. We're there all the time," he responded and was once again overcome with the urge to slap his own forehead at the stupidity of his statement.

"Well, since you're there all the time," she teased, "come find me. You can replace my coffee."

"I'll make sure to do that," he laughed as he nodded and before she could respond, she found herself being interrupted.

"Lucy, I've got everything," someone called and John's eyes widened when he looked over her shoulder and saw the Commissioner standing near the exit to the lobby, holding up a small stack of folders for her to see.

"Okay," she replied before turning to John and giving him a small smile. "Nice to meet you. Don't forget, you owe me coffee."

"Believe me, I won't forget," he grinned and she gave him one last smile before turning around and walking towards the Commissioner. She said something to Gordon and he smiled before holding the door open for her.

"Hey, Blake," he heard his name being called and he turned to see his partner sitting at his desk with a curious expression. "Wasn't that the doctor from Gotham General you have the hots for?"

John's eyes widened as he walked back to his own desk across from his partner, Ross. He sat down with a slight huff and began to shuffle through the case reports on his desk.

"I do _not_ have the hots for her," he muttered and Ross laughed loudly before leaning back in his chair.

"Really? Because it seemed like you were watching her walk away with a surprising amount of interest. If I didn't know any better, I might think you were checking her out," he smirked and John sent him a glare.

"I wasn't checking her out!" he protested and Ross shook his head.

"So, did you finally ask her out?" he asked with a raised eyebrow and an expectant look.

"No," he replied and Ross loudly groaned at the predictable answer. "Hey! What makes you think I even want to ask her out?"

"Because I see you pining away for her every time we have to go to the ER," Ross pointed out.

"Pining away?" John questioned with an amused expression as he leaned back in his seat.

"Yes, pining away. You want that girl, _badly_," Ross defended and John remained silent. "So if you didn't ask her out, what did you do? You seemed to spend a lot of time talking to her."

"I spilled her coffee all over the floor," he mumbled and Ross let out a loud laugh.

"Smooth operator, huh?" he grinned and John placed a hand over his face.

"It was so embarrassing," he complained. "I made these stupid jokes and she began to recognize me and I asked her if she'd been arrested!"

If he thought Ross' laugh before was loud, it was nothing compared to his laughter now. They were now starting to attract the attention of some of the other officers around them, most of who were smiling amusedly at the rookie's failed attempt.

"And then I acted like I'd never seen her before! She finally realized she knew me from the hospital and I told her, 'Maybe. I'm there all the time.'" Ross laughed again and there were a few more laughs from the other officers. "She's got to think I'm the biggest dumbass."

"I don't know," his partner shrugged. "She seemed to be smiling an awful lot. And not the 'I can't wait to get out of here and tell my friends about this idiot' kind of smile. More like the 'he's a dork and I kind of like it' kind of smile."

John visibly perked up at the observation and Ross couldn't help but think of a puppy as he did. "You think so?"

"Well, how did the conversation end? What'd she say?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"She said I owed her coffee the next time I was in the ER," John answered slowly as if he were thinking over her words for the first time.

"See? She likes what you've got to offer," Ross concluded and John was quiet as he replayed their entire conversation in his mind. "Hey, what was she doing with the Commissioner?"

"I don't know. She didn't say," he told him honestly.

"You don't think it was a date, do you?" Ross asked, his face scrunched up slightly at the thought. "I mean, they were both dressed pretty nice and he's getting divorced. Maybe he thinks it's time to get back in the saddle? A young, pretty saddle at that."

"No," John quickly dismissed, shaking his head. "Definitely not a date. His niece maybe?"

"He was partners with her father," a voice interrupted and both John and Ross looked over at Charlie Hughes, a veteran of the squad whose desk happened to be right next to the two young officers.

"Her dad's a cop?" John asked and Charlie shook his head without looking up form his paperwork.

"Was a cop. He was killed on the job during a botched robbery," he corrected and when he didn't explain any further, John knew the conversation was over. Charlie Hughes was a no-nonsense type of cop and John knew pressing him would get him just as far as pressing a brick wall.

"Good job, Blake," Ross laughed and John gave him a confused look. "You finally make progress with the girl you've been hung up on for months and it turns out she's the Commissioner's surrogate daughter."

John felt a bubble of anxiety begin to form in his stomach and a frown slowly formed on his face at what Ross was pointing out.

"So, not even your boss. He's in charge of the _entire_ police force," Ross continued and with every word, his dread began to grow. "You really know how to pick 'em."

* * *

A/N: So, there's the first chapter! You got a little more back story, some Gordon/Lucy heartfelt moments and Blake's introduction. Thank you everyone for the reviews, favorites and follows! I'm glad you guys like it. I'd really like to know what you thought about this one and if you think I got the characters right. I'll try to have the next part up soon!


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

Lucy slowly traced her finger along the rim of her glass, looking at its contents despondently. There was a low hum as the other patrons talked amongst themselves, catching up with friends, talking about score of that night's baseball game or just joking around. But for the most part, the bar was relatively quiet. Lucy was sitting at the bar, her cheek resting on her fist and only half of her beer gone despite the fact that they had already been there for an hour.

She glanced at Jim out of the corner of her eye and saw that he, too, was also having trouble finishing his drink. It was clear that there were several things on his mind and Lucy felt a wave of guilt wash over. She knew he had been under a lot of stress lately and she knew that she was only piling things on top of him.

"You okay?" she asked and she could tell that she had slightly startled him.

"I'm great," he told her with a weak smile and she sighed at his attempt to shrug off any worries she had about him. "Hey, who was that you were taking to at the station?"

"Hm?" she asked, her brow slightly furrowed for a second before she realized what he was talking about. "Oh, no one. Just some cop I've seen at the hospital a few times. "

"You two seemed pretty friendly," he observed and Lucy's eyes narrowed in suspicion at his innocent tone.

"You know me, Jim. I'm friendly with everyone. It's why I've got such good bedside manner," she said and he smiled into his drink as he took another sip. "Why?"

"Ah, no reason," he shrugged and her eyes narrowed once again. "It's just you seemed to be laughing an awful lot."

"He made a joke," she replied and he didn't miss the slightly defensive tone in her voice.

"Must have been pretty funny to make you light up like that on a day like today," he told her and she rolled her eyes.

"Not particularly," she muttered as she picked up her glass and took a drink before she suddenly realized what Jim had said. "Wait, what do you mean 'light up like I did'? I did not light up. There was _no_ lighting up."

"Whatever you want to think, Lucy," he said and she didn't miss the small smirk on his face and she shook her head.

"I was just being polite!" she exclaimed and he softly laughed. "Can we change the subject?"

"Sure," he nodded. "Jus one last question. What's his name?"

"John," she answered stiffly after a moment's hesitation.

"What? No last name?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

"So you can look up his record?" she laughed before shaking her head and taking another sip of her beer. "I don't think so. Leave the poor guy alone. The last thing he needs is the Commissioner watching him like a hawk."

Jim laughed at her request and couldn't help but think back to when she had introduced him and Barbara to her first boyfriend. Jim had admittedly gone a little overboard and printed out the boy's record, along with his parents' record and his brother's. Needless to say, after Jim had almost made the young man cry when he grilled him about his mother's misdemeanor marijuana possession charge when she had been in college, Lucy left their house single that night. Barbara had made sure there had been no repeats to follow.

However, just as every time before, reminiscing on any good memories shared with his soon-to-be ex-wife merely led him to inevitably remember that there would be no more happy memories involving Barbara. And with the strained relationship with his own kids, he was finding it more and more difficult to envision a happy reunion anytime soon.

"Please be honest with me," Lucy softly pleaded, breaking him from his thoughts and he looked at her to see the worry clearly evident on her face. "Are you really okay?"

"I'm supposed to be asking you that," he mumbled as he took off his glasses and ran a hand over his face before putting them back on.

"We've done enough talking about me today," she countered tiredly as she brushed her hair out of her eyes. Jim stayed silent and as she continued to stare at him, she could see him once again getting lost in thought. "Jim?"

"There have always been shades of grey," he started quietly and Lucy tilted her head slightly as she listened to him. "But I've always been able to know when the line has been crossed and things have stopped being morally ambiguous."

"Batman?" she guessed softly and he nodded.

"Every act he performed, every good deed he ever did for this city, there were always shades of grey. But he never crossed that line. He always operated on the right side of the spectrum," he explained slowly, as if he were deeply thinking over each word before they left his lips. "But this, this lie that we've built so much on, this crosses that line."

He stared at his glass as he paused, seeming to find something wrong with his statement.

"_I've_ crossed that line," he eventually amended somberly. "And it's cost me everything. Not just my family, but it's also cost me my soul."

"Jim…" Lucy trailed off, not knowing how to comfort him. She knew that the guilt from that night had weighed on him heavily; she just never knew it went this deep.

"And every day, this guilt and shame just seems to grow," he finished before downing the remaining contents of his glass and signaling the bartender for another. He could feel her gaze boring holes into him and he was too ashamed to face her.

"There's no right answer," Lucy finally told him and as he glanced at her, he was surprised to see an understanding look on her face. "I don't know if you did the right thing. But that's not for me to decide. I'm not here to play judge, jury and executioner. I'm simply here for you, Jim."

He finally lifted his eyes to meet hers and Lucy couldn't help but notice how weary he had gotten since that night with Dent. There were so many lines on his face that hadn't been there before and in that moment, he didn't look like the man who had protected her from so much. For once, it looked like he was the one who needed to be protected.

"This crisis of conscience you're going through? You won't have to go through it alone," she promised him and a silent tear made its way down his cheek before he buried his face in his hands. It took a few minutes, but Jim was finally able to sit up straight and look her in the eye.

"I was right, he'd be so proud of you," he told her and it was Lucy's turn to feel tears form in her eyes and she quickly tried to blink them away. "And the night your mother died, she called me."

"What?" Lucy asked sharply, her eyes widening and Jim nodded.

"She was distraught, crying into the phone," he said and Lucy could feel her heart pounding in her ears. "She kept saying how sorry she was."

"For what?" she whispered breathlessly as she absorbed this new information.

"For everything," he answered and they were such simple words, but they held such an incredible amount of meaning. "For not being able to be the mother she should have been."

The emotional dam she had been trying to keep standing for the day finally broke. There had been too many cracks and this was enough to send it crumbling down. Lucy suddenly broke down in sobs as she buried her face in her hands and Jim moved his chair closer to hers in order to wrap his arms around her for the second time that day.

"And then she thanked me," he continued as Lucy kept sobbing. "She thanked me for raising a daughter she could be proud of."

His words only caused her sobs to grow heavier and the bartender looked at her with concern before Jim waved him off. Once she seemed to finally calm down, she looked up at him desperately.

"Why didn't she call me?" she cried, her tears marring her pretty face. "Why couldn't she tell me how proud she was?"

Jim looked at her sorrowfully, knowing how upset she was that Annie had called him to say these things instead of calling her. But there was a part of him that understood why Annie hadn't called Lucy. It had been because she had been too ashamed of how she had betrayed Lucy's trust.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," he told her and she nodded as she picked up her drink and took a large swallow.

"I know," she eventually replied, her voice thick with her tears and she sniffled softly into her glass as she took another sip. Jim continued to look at her, the concern written all over his face. "God, when will this day just be over?"

"Soon, and then tomorrow, this will all just be a bad memory," he said and she snorted with a small shake of her head.

"Well in that case, tomorrow can't come soon enough," she replied with a faint smile and he lifted up his glass.

"I'll drink to that," he agreed and she lifted up her own glass and softly clinked it against his.

"Here's to hoping this is all just a bad dream," she whispered quietly to herself before finishing what was remaining of her drink.

* * *

Lucy watched as a mother and her young daughter walked out of the ER, their hands clasped to keep them from getting separated and she guessed that the girl was around five or six-years old. She was giggling about something and her mother looked down at her fondly. Lucy took a Twizzler out of the package on the desk in front of her and as she began to eat it, she couldn't fight the empty feeling that washed over her as she saw how close the two were.

But she as snapped from her reverie as an x-ray folder was waved in front of her and she looked up from where she was sitting at the administration desk to see a young nurse looking at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Anybody home in there?" the nurse, Marta, asked and Lucy nodded.

"Sorry, zoned out for a second," she answered and Marta shook her head dismissively as she handed Lucy the large folder.

"Here's the x-ray for the kid in three, Harry Dawson," Marta told her.

"Thanks," she said as she pulled the x-ray out of its folder and held it up to the light. "Shit, poor kid fractured his collarbone."

She put the x-ray back in its folder before getting up with a sigh. She grabbed her Twizzlers off the counter and slipped the package into her pocket before setting off down the hall. She raised an eyebrow when she noticed that Marta was coming with her.

"I thought Jane was the kid's nurse?" Lucy asked and Marta waved a dismissive hand.

"Jane looked like she could use a break so I offered to take over for her. She's had a stressful week," Marta explained and Lucy gave her a knowing look.

"The kid's dad is hot, isn't he?" she guessed and Marta grabbed her arm and pulled her to a stop in the middle of the hallway.

"God, Lucy. He's so good-looking," Marta answered and Lucy laughed at her whining tone. "He's hot and I need to get laid."

An elderly woman passing by the two gave them a disapproving look as she overheard their conversation and Lucy sent her an apologetic smile before turning back to Marta with a grin.

"But I thought things were going so well with the investment banker," Lucy said and Marta gave an exaggerated sigh as she rolled her eyes.

"You want to know what he did the other night?" Marta asked and continued before Lucy could say anything. "We were fooling around and he stopped to check his phone before he made an hour-long call to his banking buddies in Japan. And then he tried to pick up where we stopped like nothing had happened!"

"Oh, Marta," Lucy laughed and Marta shook her head with a huff. "I'm sorry."

"It goes without saying that things are over," she replied, her tone slightly disinterested before her eyes suddenly lit up. "But the guy with the kid. He's not the dad; he's the kid's baseball coach. He volunteers over at that boy's home, St. Swithin's. He volunteers _with orphans_, Lucy."

Lucy smiled at Marta's adoring tone as she amusedly shook her head before turning to walk down the hallway towards Exam Room Three, Marta trailing behind her.

"I'm Dr. Thomas. I'll be taking over for Dr. Newman," she introduced as she pushed open the door, but she was stopped in her tracks as she saw who was in the chair next to the boy's hospital bed. A surprised smile grew on her face as she saw John Blake look from the nine-year-old with the broken collarbone to see who was coming into the room, and her own smile was soon mirrored on his face.

"You know, when you said you were here all the time, I assumed it was a joke," Lucy began as she moved into the room and turned on the light board by the door before pulling out the x-ray and putting it on the board. "I didn't think it meant you were literally here all the time."

"What can I say? Even when I'm off-duty, I can't keep away," he joked and Lucy laughed.

"Wait, you two know each other?" Marta interrupted and Lucy saw looking back and forth between the two trying to understand what they were talking about.

"John's a cop. I met him a couple of days ago when I stopped by MCU with Jim," Lucy explained and Marta's eyes grew slightly wide.

"He's a cop, too?" Marta whispered and Lucy bit back her grin at the excitement in Marta's expression.

"What about my collarbone?" a voice asked and Lucy smiled at the poor boy who had been sitting there silently, waiting for the adults to address his injury.

"Well, Harry, here's the x-ray we took of your collarbone. Do you see this area right here?" She pointed to the part of the x-ray that showed his broken bone and Harry nodded curiously. "Congratulations, you are going home with a brand new clavicle fracture."

He groaned loudly as he threw his head back against the bed, wincing as he accidently jostled his shoulder.

"Am I going to need surgery?" he asked and Lucy shook her head.

"Nah, it's just a simple fracture. We'll put you in a sling and you'll be good to go in six to eight weeks," she said as she pulled down the x-ray and moved to his bedside. "Just do me a favor?"

"What?" he asked, his tone sullen.

"No more falling off fences, okay?" she asked and he sighed before nodding. "Okay, I know I'm your doctor and as your doctor, I should be telling you that as a growing boy you need all the vegetables you can get your hands on. But I won't tell if you don't."

He gave her a confused look, but as she pulled her pack of Twizzlers from her lab coat pocket and gave them to him, a large smile quickly made its way onto his face.

"And you can go ahead and take home this copy of your x-ray so you can show all your friends how tough you are," she told him as she picked up the chart hanging off the end of his bed and began to hurriedly write on it.

"Really?" he asked excitedly and she nodded as she put the chart back down.

"Yep, you'll be the coolest kid in school," she grinned, sending a wink to John, which didn't go unnoticed by Marta. "Alright, Nurse Reyes is going to set you up with a sling and you'll be out of here in no time."

"Thanks," he told her as she grabbed his x-ray off the board and turned it off.

"Of course, anything for the Gotham Knights' next left fielder," she replied, making him smile again.

"Actually, I play right field," he corrected and she laughed.

"Oh, my mistake," she apologized. "Just promise me, no more falling off of fences."

"I promise," he said and just as Lucy was about to leave the exam room, Marta stopped her.

"Dr. Thomas, why don't you take John here to grab a cup of coffee while I get Harry's sling ready?" Marta suggested and Lucy raised an eyebrow at her. She didn't miss the surprised look on John's face at the suggestion, but she could also see a flash of eagerness that was quickly covered up.

"Oh, you're probably really busy," John replied quickly and Marta's answer came back just as fast.

"It's been a slow day," she said, a slightly forceful undertone in her voice. "Harry's collarbone here has been the most action we've got all day."

"I don't want to just leave Harry alone in the hospital," he told her and Lucy grinned when she realized why he was protesting so strongly – he was nervous.

"Oh, Harry and I will be perfectly fine. We've got a whole package of Twizzlers," Marta dismissed with a wave of her hand and when John could think of no other excuse, he paused for a moment before nodding and turning to face Lucy.

"So, coffee?" he asked and Lucy bit back her smile as she opened the door.

"After you, rookie," she grinned and he laughed before turning to Harry.

"You sure you'll be fine here?" he asked and Harry nodded.

"You worry too much," Harry told him and John raised an amused eyebrow.

"Yeah, well when you've got a player who's apparently made of glass, you have to worry," he teased, making Harry smile before he walked through the door Lucy was still holding open for him.

* * *

"So, do you spend a lot of time over at St. Swithin's?" Lucy asked from where she sat across from John in the cafeteria, both of them slowly sipping their coffee.

"Yeah, I just coach some baseball," he shrugged and she tilted her head slightly as she saw something flash over his face, but whatever it was, it was gone just as quickly as it appeared.

"Well, I think that's a really great thing you're doing," she told him and he nodded with a soft smile. "Those kids need someone to watch out for them."

"Yeah, they do," he agreed and as she studied him, she saw it again. The same expression appeared on his face for just an instant before he quickly hid it. "They just need something to keep them out of trouble, so why not sports?"

"Just as long as none of them go breaking anymore bones, I think it's a great thing for them to be doing," she teased and he laughed. As she saw his dimples appear again, she knew in a second that she could get used to putting them on his face.

"How long have you been working here?" he asked, switching subjects.

"A little over two years. I'm a couple of months into my third year of residency," she answered and his brow furrowed slightly.

"You look a little young," he observed and she laughed at his reaction.

"No, it's just that my parents started me off at school a year early and then when I was in college I took on a full load as well as summer classes so I could graduate in three years instead of four," she explained and he grinned.

"A real brainiac, huh?" he joked and she softly laughed as she shook her head.

"Not at all. Just a little overly ambitious," she smiled.

"Why the ER?" he asked curiously.

"I love the chaos of it all," she explained simply. "It's the only specialty where you have these long stretches of almost boredom, then all of a sudden, it's madness."

He smiled as he heard the passion in her voice. She still sounded like this was all so new to her; her voice held the same amount of excitement as an intern's would on their first day.

"It can go from a day where the worst thing we have on the board is a broken bone or someone needing an inordinate amount of stitches to a day where all of our trauma rooms are full and we have to do procedures in the hall in the blink of an eye," she continued, her eyes lighting up. "And those are the moments I live for, those are the moments where I know for sure that I chose the right specialty. Because at those moments, every second counts and every decision is a matter of life and death. There's no time to doubt yourself or your choices. It's all about the patient and making sure that they get to go home and see their families."

"It's about helping people," he concluded and she nodded with a smile.

"Exactly. It's about fixing them as best we can and giving them a second chance," she told him.

"So that's why you chose emergency medicine, but why a doctor?" he asked and he was quick to see how her expression slightly fell at the question. It was so subtle that if he hadn't been paying such close attention, he would have missed it.

"I don't know. Why a cop?" she easily deflected.

"Because I think someone has to be out there on the front lines making sure the bad guys don't get away," he answered and she smiled widely when she realized he was an idealist.

"And that person is you?" she asked and he nodded.

"Looks like it," he replied and she smiled down at her coffee cup before taking a sip.

"At first, I didn't want to be a doctor," she said after a few moments of silence and he raised an eyebrow in slight surprise at her sudden declaration.

"What happened?" he asked cautiously, clearly sensing that this was a sensitive topic for her.

"My mom was a doctor; a surgeon actually," she corrected. "She was one of the top neurosurgeons in the country."

It didn't escape his notice that she was referring to her mother in the last tense. But he knew better than to question it.

"So I followed in her footsteps," she finished before amending her statement. "Well, sort of."

"You didn't like surgery?" he asked and she shook her head.

"It was alright," she shrugged. "I went into med school planning on picking surgery as my specialty but then I did my rotation and fell in love with emergency medicine."

"What did you originally want to be?" he asked and she bit her lip as she looked down at the table and he could tell there was some sort of internal debate she was having.

She looked back up at him and just as it looked like she was about to answer him, her pager suddenly went off and she looked down at it with a slight frown before sighing.

"Looks like that slow day we were having won't be slow for much longer," she murmured as she put it in her pocket and took one last sip of her coffee.

"Yeah, but you love it, don't you?" he asked knowingly and she grinned at him as she stood up.

"Absolutely," she replied. "I'm sure Marta has Harry all set to go. Just check with her before you leave to make sure his discharge papers have been filled out. And if there are any problems, just bring him back and I'll take a look."

"And if there are no problems?" he asked and she could hear the hopeful tone of his voice. She smiled as she glanced back down at her pager before looking at her watch.

"Then you can just come back by yourself. I'm pretty much always here," she told him and a large smile grew on his face at her invitation. "Sorry, but I really have to go."

"Yeah, go," he said with a wave of his hand as he stood up and pushed in his chair. "Go save lives."

She smiled at him and with the way her eyes lit up as she did so, if he hadn't been infatuated with he before, then there would be no escaping it now. She then turned around and began to hurriedly make her way towards the exit of the cafeteria. However, she suddenly stopped and turned back to face him.

"A cop," she told him and his brow furrowed in confusion. "When I was a kid, I wanted to be a cop. My dad was a cop so I wanted to be one, too."

Despite her light tone, he could see from her expression how serious she was and how important of a confession it was. And for a moment, he wondered how many people she had told that to. However a small smile soon found its way onto her pretty face.

"You know, making sure the bad guys don't get away and all that," she said, using his own words from earlier before turning around and running out the door, not giving him a chance to respond as she rushed off to deal with whatever emergency was headed towards the hospital.

As he stood still, his smile slowly grew as it hit him how special this girl was. And at that moment he knew that he was in deep.

* * *

A/N: So, I hope you all liked it. Sorry for the wait, I've had a friend staying with me so I've been really busy. The next one might not be up for about a week since I'm moving on Saturday and my classes start next week, but I'll try and see what I can do. Thank you so much to everyone who favorited, followed or reviewed. It's so nice to see that you guys really like the story so far. I'm sorry for not sending out replies to reviews, but I just haven't had time. I promise I'll send them out for the next chapter and I'd love to hear what you thought about this one!


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

As the days slowly passed, Lucy was seeing more and more of John Blake. After his first visit to the hospital with Harry, she had run into him only a few days later when he and his partner came to take the statement of a man who had been mugged. And somehow, it had turned into a nightly routine; he would show up after his shift with a warm cup of coffee for her and just as she had told him that first day, she always seemed to be at the hospital. Sometimes the ER would be in disarray with the amount of patients waiting to be seen, but Lucy somehow always seemed to find the time to say hi and thank him for the coffee.

It never went any further than his trips to the ER to see her and for that Lucy was grateful. She liked how slow things were going and she liked that it allowed her to get to know John without any expectations for something more. For once, it was nice to just see where things were going as they happened and enjoy everything as it came her way.

However, there were some people who didn't see it that way. With how often John had been stopping by, the staff had quickly learned to recognize him and knew to page Lucy as soon as he walked through the entrance. It seemed that to everyone but Lucy and John, it wouldn't be long until the two were more than just friends.

"You can't honestly tell me you don't want to date him," Marta told her one night, her tone exasperated from how many times this conversation had been had. And as with every time Marta brought it up, Lucy gave her the same answer.

"It's not about that," she sighed as the two sat next to each other at the administration desk. "It's just that I like how things are now and if it changes-"

"_When_ it changes," Marta corrected and Lucy rolled her eyes.

"If it changes then I'll deal with it when it happens," she continued with a shrug.

"I just don't understand what you're waiting for," Marta argued. "He doesn't seem like the usual hit-it-and-quit-it dicks we usually see around here and I can tell that he has a thing for you."

"I like how slow things are going!" Lucy defended and Marta sighed heavily. But before she could reply, someone had interrupted their conversation.

"Marta, can you place an IV on the guy in Curtain Area Two?" someone asked and the pair looked up to see the attending ER doctor, Peter Hendricks, leaning against the counter behind them.

"Only if you try and talk some sense into this girl," Marta replied, pointing at Lucy as she stood up.

"Oh, the cop?" he asked knowingly, causing Lucy to roll her eyes with a small huff as Marta walked away.

"I thought you were above gossiping, Peter," she muttered as he looked over the ER's board, which listed all of the current patients.

"Then you clearly don't know me very well," he countered amusedly with a grin and she shook her head as she attempted to hide her smile. "Any new developments?"

Lucy sighed as she leaned further back in her office chair and read over the patients on the board.

"Sent home the guy with stomach pains; it was just food poisoning. Psych finally came down and took schizo lady. Kid with appendicitis is up in surgery as we speak," she listed off and Peter waved off her response.

"I didn't mean with the patients. I meant with your cop," he clarified as he turned to face her, leaning back against the counter.

"He's not _my_ cop!" she exclaimed and Peter laughed, only to have his response cut off.

"Don't you two have patients to take care of?" Ron, the desk clerk, asked both Lucy and Peter from where he sat in front of the computer, processing paperwork.

"I'm having a rare moment of peace, Ron. Don't spoil it," Lucy whined to the man in his sixties. He shook his head as he mumbled something under his breath but didn't argue with her. He instead turned his attention to Peter.

"And you? You really don't have anything better to do than sit around and gossip?" Ron asked Peter disbelievingly and Peter laughed.

"Ron, don't you want to know more about Lucy's cop?" Peter responded, ignoring Ron's question and Ron shook his head.

"If you want to gossip, go do it somewhere else. Do you see this stack?" he replied, pointing to the basket full of papers without turning away from the computer screen. "See, these are all of the things that I need to get processed before I leave. And when you are standing here, yammering away, it makes it that much more difficult."

"You really know how to kill the party," Peter grinned, but did as Ron requested and began to walk away. But as he did so, he turned back to face Lucy. "I want to here more about this cop later, Lucy!"

Lucy rolled her eyes as she swiveled her chair to look at the board again. It was nice and empty, only a few patients still listed and she couldn't help but be slightly annoyed that it had only started to wind down when she only had less than two hours left of her shift.

"Thanks for that, Ron," she said, still facing the board and she heard Ron make a non-committal sound. However grumpy he always seemed, Lucy knew that he had a soft spot for her, even though he would never admit it aloud.

Glancing down at her watch, she saw the time and yawned tiredly, not bothering to try and stifle it. Although it wasn't that late, she had worked a long shift and couldn't wait to go home and sleep.

"Exam Six is free," Ron suddenly said and Lucy smiled before standing up and stretching with another yawn.

"Then Exam Six is where I'll be. Have someone wake me up if they need me," she replied before making her way from the administration desk and towards the empty exam room. "Thanks, Ron."

"I'm in the middle of something," he told her, gesturing to the paper he had in front of him, ignoring her thanks.

"Well, thank you anyways," she repeated and smiled again when all she got was a dismissive wave of his hand.

* * *

Just like every night for the past two weeks, John walked into the ER with a cup of coffee in his hand. The ER was relatively quiet and John was relieved when he didn't have to push through any impatient people waiting to be seen as he made his way towards the administration desk. When he stopped in front of the desk, the older man sitting there looked up at him and once he saw John's uniform, a confused expression on his face.

"Did anyone call the police?" he called over his shoulder and before John could tell him that he was there to see Lucy, another man in green scrubs looked up from the chart he was writing on and saw John. Peter couldn't hold back his slight grin at seeing the infatuated police officer back in the ER.

"Ron, that's Lucy's cop," Peter told Ron before going back to his chart and John's eyes grew slightly wide at his words.

"Oh," Ron nodded as he went back to working on emptying his inbox basket that was sitting on the counter. "So, you're the one who's trying to whisk our dear Dr. Thomas off of her feet?"

"No, it's nothing like that," John began to protest before Ron shook his head, effectively cutting him off.

"She was off an hour ago," Ron said and a slightly disappointed look fell over John's face when he realized he had missed her.

"No, she's still asleep in Exam Six," Peter corrected Ron without looking up from his chart. "Didn't want to wake her, so I let her sleep."

"Exam Six?" John asked hopefully and Ron looked up from the computer in front of him with a raised eyebrow and a bored expression.

"Straight down the hall. It's the last room on the right," Ron directed him, pointing at the hallway on John's left.

"Thanks," John replied as he began to walk away and Ron shook his head as he went back to his paperwork.

"Kids," he muttered under his breath and Peter laughed as he put his pen in his pocket.

"Don't you remember being like that, Ron?" he asked with a grin as he leaned against the counter next to him and Ron huffed. "So eager to see your girl you were on her doorstep every night?"

"I'm gay," he answered flatly and Peter laughed again.

"The principle still stands," he argued before walking away and leaving Ron to complain to himself about the growing stack in his inbox. But as he glanced up from his computer, he felt the corner of his mouth turn up slightly as he watched the young cop walk down the hall.

As John reached the exam room, he slowly pushed open the door to the exam room, careful to do so as quietly as possible. The room was dark except for the light coming in through the window from the streetlights outside and it illuminated the room just enough for him to see where he was going without tripping over anything.

Once he was standing next to the hospital bed that Lucy was lying on, he took a moment to just observe her. She was curled up in a ball on her side, both of her arms were underneath her pillow and her hair was covering her face. Her green scrubs were wrinkled, but he was sure that was the last thing she would care about when he woke her up.

"Lucy," he whispered softly as he gently shook her shoulder and she groaned before burying her face in her pillow. When he shook her again, she batted away his hand and mumbled something unintelligible. Recognizing that this was getting him nowhere, he knelt down next to the bed and gently brushed her hair out of her face. "Lucy, your shift is over."

Her eyes slowly blinked open as she felt his fingers against her cheek and it took her a moment to realize where she was. She tiredly rolled onto her back as she rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up and John stood up.

"What time is it?" she asked hoarsely and he looked down at his watch.

"Around one-thirty," he answered and she groaned as she sat up, her hands still rubbing her face.

"I was off over an hour ago," she mumbled as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. "This place, I'm telling you, it just sucks you in. It's like a vortex."

"How long have you been here?" he asked her and she yawned as she looked up at him and he could see her trying to figure it out in her head. He smiled at the way her hair was matted down on one side from where she had been laying on it.

"It was a 36 hour shift, so since noon on Tuesday," she finally replied as she shook her head. "I hate these shifts. I can never keep my days straight when I have them."

"Well, I'll drive you home," he offered and she shook her head as she stood up and stretched.

"No, it's fine. I'll just catch the bus," she protested, a large yawn interrupting her midway through her sentence.

"I'm not going to make you take the bus home this late at night when you're so exhausted," John insisted and seemed to think over his words for a moment.

"You sure you don't mind?" she asked.

"Of course not," he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand and she nodded as she began to lead him out of the exam room, her eyes squinting slightly from the brightness of the hallway.

"Thanks," she told him as they walked back down the hall towards the entrance. "Let me just grab my stuff."

She left him standing in the waiting area as she disappeared through a doorway that led to the doctor's lounge and only a few minutes later, she was walking back out as she pulled on her backpack and zipped up her sweatshirt.

"Ready?" he asked and she sighed heavily.

"You have no idea," she replied as she shook her head tiredly and he smiled both at how messy her hair still was and at how she was too exhausted to care. They both began to head out of the ER, but before they could get too far, someone was trying to grab Lucy's attention.

"Lucy!" they heard someone call and John stopped and looked back to see that a nurse in pale blue scrubs was trying to get her attention.

"I'm off!" she shouted back and John saw that she hadn't stopped walking.

"I need you really quick!" the nurse protested and Lucy emphatically shook her head as she finally stopped and turned around to see the nurse coming towards her.

"Susie, no. I'm done. I was off over an hour ago. Get someone else, there's plenty of other residents," Lucy argued forcefully and the nurse, Susie, sighed.

"It's Margaret's daughter. She showed up about twenty minutes ago and is insisting on seeing the doctor who treated her mother when she was admitted," Susie explained as she held up a chart and John saw a confused look grow on Lucy's face.

"Margaret?" she asked, trying to figure out whom Susie was referring to.

"Old lady who slipped and broke her wrist. She was brought in a couple of hours ago," she answered and Lucy sighed heavily as she seemed to realize what patient Susie was talking about.

"Do you mind waiting a bit?" she asked John tiredly. "This shouldn't take too long."

"Don't worry about it," he replied and Lucy nodded before grabbing the chart from Susie and making her way back into the ER, her shoulders hunched out of exhaustion.

"You can come," she said over her shoulder when she realized he wasn't following her. "You don't have to wait out here."

"Are you sure?" he asked slightly apprehensively and she nodded.

"Yeah, don't worry about it," she answered and he began to follow her once again as she and Susie walked towards another exam room, which held four hospital beds.

However, there was only one patient in the room, an elderly woman with snow-white hair and a cast around her right wrist. Her free hand was being held tightly by a middle-aged woman with dirty blonde hair and once she saw them enter the room, she had sprung up.

"Are you the doctor who treated my mother?" the woman asked frantically and Susie handed Lucy the elderly woman's chart for her to glance over.

"Yes, Mrs. Beck. This is Dr. Thomas," Susie answered on Lucy's behalf as Lucy returned the chart to her.

"Is my mother alright? I've told her not to leave the house! I went to help her get ready for bed and she wasn't there! We've been so worried about her!" Mrs. Beck exclaimed and Lucy brushed her hair behind her ear and before a word could leave her mouth, Mrs. Beck had already began to continue. "We called our neighbors, the police and about 10 other hospitals before we found out where she was! She's not supposed to leave the house on her own! Mom, you can't leave the house on your own!"

Mrs. Beck had turned back to her mother as she addressed her and Lucy took a deep breath.

"Mrs. Beck, your mother is perfectly fine. It's just a broken wrist-" she began only to be cut off as Mrs. Beck gasped.

"Is my mother in some sort of trouble?" she asked as she saw John standing in the doorway and she sounded on the verge of becoming hysteric. John's eyes widened at being addressed. "Did something happen? Why are the police here?"

"Mrs. Beck, you or your mother aren't in any trouble at all," Lucy started to reassure her only to be interrupted yet again.

"But why are the police here?" she asked again anxiously.

"Ma'am, I'm just an observer. There aren't any problems," John told her, trying to calm the frantic woman who seemed to only be getting more and more upset.

"Then why are you here? Is there something I'm not being told? I something wrong?" she asked and before she could say anything else, Susie finally decided to take control of the situation.

"Mrs. Beck, this officer is Dr. Thomas' boyfriend. Her shift is over and he's here to pick her up," Susie explained and when Lucy went to argue with her, Susie sent her a strong warning look. And when the answer finally seemed to appease the woman, Lucy held her tongue.

"So, there aren't any problems?" Mrs. Beck asked cautiously and Lucy shook her head.

"No, ma'am," she answered and when she saw Mrs. Beck open her mouth, she quickly continued. "Your mother is fine, just a broken wrist. Bring her back in a few days to have her looked at and come in if there's any swelling, but she's going to be just fine."

"Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Thomas," Mrs. Beck replied with a relieved sigh as she sat back down next to her sleeping mother.

"Of course," she replied before turning around and John held open the door for both her and Susie.

"Have a nice night, ma'am," John told Mrs. Beck who gave him a warm smile.

"You do the same, Officer," she replied and before he was able to shut the door, she had continued to say something else. "You know, you two make a very good couple. You remind me of my son-in-law. Oh, he's so handsome and such a gentleman. And he sure treats my daughter right. And I can tell, you probably do the same for Dr. Thomas."

John stared at her with wide eyes, unsure of how to reply. If he disagreed with her, he knew that he would only cause her to become upset again, so he instead decided to politely nod his head.

"Um, yes, thank you," he told her before giving her a small wave and shutting the door behind him, leaving her alone with her mother. He turned to see Lucy waiting a few feet from him with a curious look.

"What was that about?" she asked once he reached her and they both began to walk out of the ER for the second time that night.

"Oh, nothing," he shrugged. "Now let's get you home."

* * *

John glanced over at Lucy as she sat in the passenger seat of his squad car, her arms wrapped around her backpack in her lap and her head resting against the window as she struggled to keep her eyes open in order to be able to tell John how to drive her home.

"How was your shift?" he asked her, hoping that holding a conversation would help her stay awake.

"Rough," she scoffed as she rubbed her eyes. "Take a left at the next stoplight."

"Any particular reason or was it just because it was so long?" he asked as the car came to a stop at the traffic light and he patiently waited for the light to turn green.

"Just one of those shifts," she shrugged. "You get them every so often, especially working in such a busy ER. You know, you just seem to get a bunch of bad cases all in one shift."

"Do you want to talk about?" he asked gently as the light turned green and he turned left. She snorted as she shook her head.

"Nothing to really talk about," she replied. "I'll just go home, go to sleep, spend my day off tomorrow doing nothing and then by the time I'm back at work, I won't even remember it."

"What, it just fades away?" he questioned and she could easily tell he was having difficulty trying to understand it.

"Pretty much," she answered, her tone slightly bored, before pointing to the next street. "Make a right up here. But really, the patients and the problems bleed together."

"So after a tough day at the hospital, you can just forget everything you've seen?" he pushed and she sighed as she rested her head back against the seat and looked at him.

"You're complicating it," she explained and he shook his head as he glanced at her.

"I just don't get how you don't remember these patients," he argued. "The patients you save, the patients you lose, you just forget about them?"

"John, you know what I got this shift?" she asked and she continued before he could give her a reply. "We got an abused wife who refused to report her husband. Then, a teenager with alcohol poisoning and who, in almost all likelihood, has suffered severe brain damage, which we'll only know the extent of if he ever wakes up from his coma. Also a student from Gotham University who was at the top of his class came in with a simple cough, only for us to find out that it turns out he has terminal lung cancer. Oh and let's not forget the mother of two young children who had a heart attack while they were sleeping. The five-year-old son found her and called 911. She was DOA."

John was quiet and she could see how stiff he had become and the way his jaw had tensed as she recounted her night. She was unsure as to why he seemed so upset. After all, he was a cop. And even though he was a cop in what was now a relatively clean city, he was a cop nonetheless. This kind of stuff shouldn't be new to him.

"And these people, they don't stay with you?" he asked, his voice slightly rough. "These tragedies don't affect you?"

There was a long, heavy silence that filled the police car as John waited for her reply. Lucy had seemed like such a caring doctor. She had been great when he had brought in Harry and with her personality, he was certain that she really cared about her patients. Or at least, he _had_ been certain.

"You can stop up there, that's my building," she directed him, pointing to an average looking building just up ahead. There was nothing spectacular about it and it seemed to blend in with the other buildings, which looked exactly the same. He did as instructed and put the car into park, his gaze on the street in front of him.

"You don't care about these people?" he asked quietly. "You don't care about how their lives are ruined and all of the things that will never be for them?"

When she remained silent and he finally looked at her, he could see how much he had offended her.

"Don't you say that I don't care about my patients," she warned, her voice low. "It is my job to care for these people, to save them and fix them. But sometimes, most of the time if the case is severe enough, that doesn't happen."

His features softened slightly at her words. She was clearly upset and he was beginning to feel guilty for being the cause.

"Lucy-" he started softly only for her to quickly interrupt him by unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the car door.

"Thanks for the ride, John," she said, her voice tight as she got out of the car and shut the passenger door behind her. Before she could get away, John had hurriedly turned off the engine and jumped out of the car after her.

"Wait, Lucy!" he called and she stopped with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

She turned around to face him tiredly and he leaned against the side of the car anxiously as he waited to see what her response would be.

"You can't park your car there," she finally told him and she somehow managed to look even more exhausted than she had been earlier. "There's no street parking in front of the building."

"I don't think anyone's going to give a ticket to a cop car," he replied dryly and the corner of her mouth twitched up for a brief moment.

"And what about rule of law?" she asked, her eyes slightly sparkling in amusement. "You know, that principle our legal system is based on?"

John laughed as he looked down at the ground with a small shake of his head. When he looked back up, he saw that she was moving towards him and once she had reached him, she moved to carefully sit on the hood of his car. She took her backpack off and placed it in her lap before wrapping her arms around it with a small sigh.

"I'm sorry for saying you don't care about your patients," he apologized quietly as he held her gaze and she bit her bottom lip. "I didn't mean it. I just…"

"If I care about them, then how can I just forget about them?" she finished for him, knowing what he wanted to ask her.

"Yeah," he responded softly and she stifled a yawn as she brushed back her slightly tangled hair.

"If I let those people I lost stay with me, I'd never be able to go back to that hospital," she began to explain gently. "I'd never be able to live with myself."

John dropped his gaze to the pavement, but he could still feel her eyes on him and he could tell how desperate she was for him to understand.

"People die everyday and if I were to hold onto the ones who died under my care, I'd lose my mind," she continued softly and she was silent for a brief moment. "You can't hold onto the people you can't save."

Her voice was heavy and John looked up to see that she had now dropped her gaze. Her words seemed to hold more meaning for her than she was letting on, but he knew better than to press her.

"What about the people you do save?" he eventually asked so quietly that Lucy barely heard him over the sound of a passing car. She sighed as she looked up at her building.

"The feeling eventually passes. It stays, but never for too long. As soon as another critical patient is brought in, you have to let go of every patient before so that you focus on nothing but the task at hand," she answered.

John gave a half-hearted nod as he thought over her words. He understood her point, or he at least understood it better than he had earlier. But there was still a small part of himself that couldn't help but be a little disappointed.

"But you're a cop. Don't you go through the same thing?" she asked him, interrupting his thoughts. "I mean, I know the streets have been cleaned up, but don't you have to let go of things?"

"I've only been a cop for about a year now," he shrugged. "I haven't really seen too much. I've gotten some domestic disputes and a few burglaries, but nothing much worse that that."

Lucy didn't say anything as she looked at him. The only thing she could think of was how lucky he was not to have been a cop when Gotham had been rampant with crime. While he might have preferred to be out stopping criminals than answering calls about noise complaints, Lucy knew firsthand how lives were ruined back when the streets had been filled with common criminals.

"I'm glad that those are the kind of calls you're answering," she finally confessed and John looked at her with a slightly surprised expression.

"Well, I guess that makes one of us," he mumbled as he looked back down at the sidewalk. While he did love working for the police, he couldn't help but be disappointed at how little of an impact he felt was making.

"Don't say that," Lucy told him forcefully and he raised an eyebrow at her. "Be grateful that you haven't had to go through any truly dangerous yet."

He looked at her quietly, and he could see that there was an internal debate going on in her head. Finally, it seemed like one side had won.

"You know how I told you my dad was a cop?" she asked, breaking the silence and he nodded. "He was killed on the job."

"I'm sorry, Lucy," he murmured, and he truly was. If anyone knew what it was like to lose a parent, it was John. And although he already knew that her father had been killed on the job, it didn't make her confession any less significant.

"Don't play the hero, John," she advised cautiously and his brow furrowed slightly. "The only thing playing the hero will get you is an early grave."

Before he could argue with her, she had slid off the hood of his car and stood up, swinging her backpack on.

"Thanks again for the ride," she said and he nodded.

"Yeah, anytime," he replied, his voice slightly rough as he continued to gaze at her thoughtfully, her words running on an endless loop in his head.

"I'll see you soon," she waved goodbye to him before walking into her building, leaving John leaning against his car, staring at her retreating figure through the glass doors of her building. It seemed that with Lucy Thomas, nothing would be easy.

* * *

A/N: I am so sorry it took so long for me to update! It's just that my semester started and I've just been surprisingly busy. Plus this one just seemed to take awhile to write. And if I'm being honest, I don't really like it, at least not the first half. But I promise the next one will be up sooner and it will be better! And I'm also so sorry that I don't have time to do any individual review responses, but I've still got some reading I have to do for my classes tomorrow. So, thanks to marianasgirl, ZabuzasGirl, Lift the Wings, Daisygirl95, WhatsGoingOn and MissScaryKitty for the reviews! Please let me know what you think about this one, I really do want to hear!


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

John could hardly keep his eagerness from showing. He and Ross had been called to the ER to take statements regarding a bar fight, where more than one participant had ended up needing a trip to the hospital.

"We're taking statements, Blake. Try not to look so excited," Ross warned and John realized he must not have been doing as good a job at hiding his keenness as he thought.

"Sorry," he replied as he cleared his throat and made sure that he was no longer smiling. When they came to a stop outside the exam room where one of the people involved in the fight was being held, John quickly grabbed onto Ross' arm before he could open the door. "Why don't we split up? We can cover more ground that way. You take the first two, I'll take the last two."

"Split up, huh?" Ross asked, a knowing grin forming on his face. "So you can go stop in on your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend," John quickly corrected. "And I just think we can get out of here sooner if we split up."

"Sure, why not?" Ross shrugged, his grin growing wider. "After all, what are partners for?"

Before John could respond, Ross had already entered the exam room, leaving John free to make his way to reception. He stopped in front of Ron, the only person sitting at the desk, and waited for him to notice that he was standing there.

"She's in Trauma Room Two," Ron said without looking away from his computer screen.

"Oh, is she busy?" John asked, not wanting to be in Lucy's way, but Ron just shook his head.

"No, they're done," he answered and when he didn't continue, John took it as his cue to leave. He quickly walked down the hallway before pushing open the swinging door to the trauma room. But once he did, his eyes went wide at the scene before him.

The floor was covered in standing puddles of blood. There was no gurney or patient, leaving John to assume the patient had either been sent away to another department or had died; John could only hope it was the former. When he was finally able to tear his eyes away from the scene, he saw Lucy standing to the side, leaning back against a counter. She was resting her head in one of her hands and she had yet to notice him.

"Lucy?" he gently asked and she slightly jumped as she lifted her head to look at whoever had interrupted her moment of silence.

"Hey, John," she greeted wearily before rubbing her eyes. She turned her back to him and leaned forward against the counter on her hands before dropping her head.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice laced with concern. "What happened?"

"Just another night in the ER," she scoffed, still keeping her back to him. "Thirty-two year old woman brought in with severe lacerations to her arms. She tried to kill herself."

"Jesus," he breathed out. "Is she okay?"

Lucy suddenly whirled around to face him with a humorless laugh.

"Look at all the blood, John," she told him as she gestured to the blood on the floor, an almost mocking look on her face. "She cut vertically, not horizontally. She cut right down the arteries. She got exactly what she wanted."

John stared at her silently. He didn't know what to say and from the way she was acting, he was unsure of whether he was supposed to at all. She made her way to him, stopping at his side and looking out the window on the door to the room. John turned around and followed her gaze to see her staring at a little girl whose clothes were covered in blood.

"Who is she?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"The woman's daughter. She found her mother in the bathroom. Hasn't said a word since she got here," she answered, her voice devoid of emotion. John opened his mouth to say something, but before he had the chance Lucy had cut him off. "What are you doing here, John?"

"Um, bar fight. They brought the guys who were in it here. Ross and I have to take statements." He was thrown by her slightly harsh tone, almost as if he were just in the way.

"Shouldn't you be talking to the patients then?" she asked and his brow furrowed.

"I just-"

"Just what?" she interrupted, look at him with slightly narrowed eyes. "You can't just come here whenever you want. I have a job and you do, too."

"Lucy," he started off slowly, the confusion clearly evident in his voice and on his face. "Did I do something wrong here? I thought that you liked it when I stopped by. I thought we got along real well."

She was silent for a few moments, her gaze now back on the little girl, who was staring at her fingers as they played with the hem of her shirt.

"I have to go tell that kid, that poor, no longer innocent, little girl, that her mother is dead. And to top it off, she's dead out of choice, because she couldn't stand her life any longer. Even a life that included her daughter, although who knows? Maybe it was especially a life that included her daughter," she said and John felt his concern grow at how cynical her tone was.

"Don't talk like that," he whispered gently as he brought a hand to her shoulder, only for her to shrug him off. "Don't make it sound like that."

"That's the world we fucking live in, John," she cruelly replied. "People die and sometimes they're fucking cowards."

"We're not here to judge. We're here to help," he reminded her and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before sighing heavily.

"If you don't mind, I'd really appreciate it if you left so I can finish gathering up the courage to ruin that girl's life," she dismissed him coldly and John gave her a long look before deciding to comply with her wish and left her alone in the trauma room.

It was later that evening, when he and Ross had finally gotten all the statements they needed, that John spared a glance down the hallway to Trauma Room Two. He stopped in his tracks at the sight that awaited him. The little girl from earlier was crying into Lucy's lap as Lucy held her close, and even at this distance, John could see her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

* * *

Lucy looked up at the police station in front of her, nervously biting her lip and trying to gather up the courage to enter the building. Finally, after deciding she could no longer continue to stand outside, she made her way up the steps of the station and pushed open its heavy door. She recognized the officer at the front desk as the one who always happened to be there whenever she came with Jim and he gave her a wave, which she returned with a small smile.

She then walked the familiar path through MCU, trying to not to get in anyone's way. She quickly searched the room, looking to see whether John was anywhere to be found and she saw that he was sitting at a desk with his back to her. With a deep breath she began to make her way over to where he was seated.

When she was almost there, John's partner, whose desk was across from John's, seemed to notice her and said something to John, who spun around in his seat with a surprised look. She nervously pushed back her hair as she came to stop next to his desk and she dropped her gaze to the papers scattered across its surface in an effort to avoid eye contact.

"What are you doing here?" John eventually asked when she continued to stand there quietly and after taking a deep breath, she finally looked at him.

"Can we talk?" she replied and he was surprised by the slight hint of desperation in her eyes.

"Yeah, of course," he said as he stood up and she began to lead him away from his desk, not waiting to see if he was following.

His brow furrowed when he realized that she wasn't leading him out of the building but instead up to the roof. The climb up the narrow stairwell was filled with a heavy silence, John too confused to say anything and Lucy too nervous. She pushed open the door to the roof and held it open for him before moving to lean against the roof's edge.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" he asked, breaking the silence when he realized she wasn't going to speak. She remained silent before turning to look at him.

"John," she began before biting her lip and he moved closer to her. "I'm really sorry for how I treated you earlier."

Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't an apology and he could only look at her with slightly wide eyes.

"No, it's okay," he replied and she shook her head fervently.

"No, it's not," she argued and she gave him another long look before turning around to look back out over the city. And as she did so, she couldn't help but admire how beautiful it looked lit up at night. "John, my mother died three weeks ago."

She heard him move and she soon saw him come to stand next to her out of the corner of her eye.

"I'm sorry, Lucy," he murmured and she didn't have to look at him to know that he was giving her a sorrowful look.

"She killed herself," she continued, her voice emotionless and John's eyes widened at the revelation. "Slit her wrists in her bathroom. Didn't even leave a note."

"Lucy, you don't have to do this," he whispered gently and she shook her head as she looked at him.

"I try not to let my job get to me. I lose too many people to let it affect me. But today, having to tell that little girl that her mother had killed herself, I did something that I promised myself I would never do," she told him and he saw that her eyes were filled with unshed tears.

"What?" he quietly asked and she returned her gaze to the view of the city.

"I saw myself in one of my patient's lives," she replied, her voice hoarse. "I saw myself in that woman's daughter and it broke me. And I took it out on you."

"It's okay. I understand," he said and she looked back at him with a tired expression.

"Stop it, John. You're my friend and it was wrong of me to take out my anger on you," she protested and after a moment's hesitation, he nodded. When she didn't continue, a silence settled over them as they both leaned against the rooftop's edge, their thoughts weighted down from their conversation.

"That night we met was the day of my mother's funeral," she confessed, shattering the silence and John's eyes grew wide as he looked at her. "Jim and I were going to go get a drink to drown away the memories of that day but he needed to stop by the station to pick up some things first."

He had to shake his head slightly at the revelation. He remembered that night clearly; how could he not? It was the first night he had actually gotten to have a conversation with her. And she had seemed like she had been in such a good mood. He had been oblivious to everything that had been going on under the surface. He always thought he had been so good at seeing through people's masks. Yet all this time, he had been unaware that Lucy had been wearing one.

But her mask was different. It wasn't like his. It wasn't to hide away her anger, at least it didn't seem like it was. No, she wore her mask to hide how damaged she was.

"I lost both my parents when I was young," he told her. He could easily see how isolated she was feeling at her admission and he needed to let her know she wasn't alone. They were both damaged.

She looked at him with wide eyes as she listened to him. From all the time they had spent together, it was only now that she realized how little she truly knew about his past.

"My mom died when I was little. And then my dad was into gambling and I'm sure you can work out how that ended up," he continued, his voice rough. "The reason I help out at St. Swithin's? It's because that's where I grew up."

Instead of replying, Lucy gently moved her hand so that it was resting on top of his. He dropped his gaze to their hands and the warmth from where they were touching seemed to spread throughout his whole body. She gently squeezed his hand and when he finally looked back up at her, it was as if she could see right through him.

"It doesn't get any easier, does it?" she murmured.

"What?" he asked and she sighed as she turned towards him, her hand still clasping his.

"Losing people," she whispered as she looked up at him with her sad eyes and as the wind blew her hair into her face, he gently pushed it back behind her ear, his fingers lingering against her cheek before he dropped his hand back to his side.

"No," he answered, his voice just as quiet and she gave him a long look before turning her back on the city.

"I didn't know it would feel like this," she said and it almost sounded like she was speaking more to herself than to him. "I was only ten when my dad died and grief when you're a child is so different from grief when you're an adult. When my dad died, the grief was never ending. I thought it was going to hurt forever. But slowly, very slowly, it just sort of…scarred over. It might not hurt as much, but it's still there."

He was quiet as he listened to her. He didn't need to say anything to let her know that he understood her words. Because for John, sometimes it felt like all that was left were scars.

"But now, the grief is so different. I never know where I'm going to be one day from the next. It's like I'm on edge all the time, just waiting for the tide to come in, and when it finally does, it feels like I'm drowning."

John could hear the fear in her voice at her admission. From the look on her face, she was clearly afraid to say the words aloud, as if they could somehow damage her on their own.

"Today the tide came in and when it did, I couldn't breathe." She finally looked back up at him, her eyes sparkling from the tears in her eyes and she quickly blinked them away.

Not knowing what else to do, he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. She was quick to return the embrace, encircling her own arms around his middle.

"Maybe you just someone to help keep you afloat," he whispered into her hair and she shut her eyes at his words, hoping to prevent any more tears from forming. She had already done enough crying today.

"Maybe," she agreed softly and they continued to hold each other tightly, neither wanting to let go of the safety they found in each other's arms. But eventually, she pulled away, however reluctantly. She gave him a shaky smile before turning away from the city and leaning back against the roof's edge.

Her gaze came to rest on the broken floodlight standing nearby. She gently brushed her fingers over the rim of the spotlight, careful not to cut her fingers on the shards of broken glass or the now rusted over metal bat that sat inside the spotlight's otherwise empty drum, as if it had been forgotten by time.

"Did you ever meet him?" she heard John ask and a small smile somehow found its way onto her lips at the question.

"Not formally," she replied. "But he and Jim used to have their not-so-secret rendezvous up here and I accidentally interrupted them once or twice."

She couldn't help but let out a small laugh as she remembered the first time she had seen the Batman in person. She had been waiting for Jim in his office and after fifteen minutes, she had decided to go up to the roof herself and see what was taking him so long. When she saw the large, masked figure standing next to Jim, her eyes had gone wide. She had interrupted them mid-conversation and she couldn't help the disbelieving laugh that escaped her lips.

"I'll be down shortly, Lucy," Jim had assured her, an obvious cue for her to leave the two men alone, one that went completely ignored.

"You're Batman," she had stated obviously, a wide smile growing on her face, and the masked man had just continued to stare at her.

"Lucy, please," Jim had urged her and she glanced at him.

"Yeah, sorry," she nodded, her gaze now once again back on the Batman. She started to close the door before opening it up one last time. "Hey, I just want to say, in case I never get to again, I think that what you're doing for Gotham is brave. I don't care what the newspapers might say or what the politicians might complain about, you're the bravest man in the city."

She had turned her gaze to Jim with a soft smile.

"Second bravest man in the city," she had nodded with a quick wink, making Jim smile in return, before turning back to Batman. "Thanks, for everything."

She hadn't waited for him to reply before making her way back down to MCU, but she had remained just long enough to notice how the corner of the masked vigilante's lip had twitched slightly upward for just a moment. It had been the only time she had ever spoken to Batman, but it hadn't been their only encounter. A reminiscent look fell over her face at the thought.

"I was arrested once when I was 17," she said, shattering the silence, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"For what?" he asked disbelievingly.

"Underage drinking and possession of marijuana," she answered. "I was going through a teenage rebellion phase."

She didn't mention that she had been rebelling against her mother, nor did she mention how concerned Jim and Barbara had been about the road she had been on at the time.

"Instead of booking me, they brought me to MCU and put me in Jim's office. They went to go get him from the roof and when he came back down, I don't think I've ever heard him yell like that." She shook her head slightly at the memory of how she had been scolded.

There was so much of that night that seemed like a blur nine years later. But the one thing she would remember clearly was the look on Jim's face once he had finally calmed down. He had looked lost, like he didn't know where to go from that point. And looking back on it now, she knew he had been thinking about the promise he had made to her father and that he was doing a poor job keeping it.

"He had been talking to Batman when they went and got him. I can only imagine how that played out," she said and couldn't help but let out a slight laugh. "To keep me out of trouble after that, Jim made me work as an intern at MCU after school starting the next day."

If she was being honest with herself, she thought that he made her work with him as a last resort because he didn't know what else to do except for keep his eye on her when she wasn't at home or in school.

"But a few days later, I went up to the roof to ask Jim something and he had forgotten to shut the door all the way." John noticed that her voice now held a far-off quality, as if she were truly lost in the memory.

"He was talking to Batman about some criminal investigation. I didn't want to interrupt them right in the middle of their conversation so I hid in the stairwell. But as their conversation began to wind down, instead of disappearing like he always did the moment Jim turned his back, he asked Jim a question." Lucy could remember every second of this moment as if it had just happened. She remembered how nervous she had been hiding in the stairwell, hoping that Batman wouldn't somehow notice she was there.

"He asked Jim, 'How is she?'" John didn't need to ask to know to whom Batman was referring. "Batman, the masked vigilante who took on the mob without blinking, asked Jim about how _I_ was doing."

He could hear the disbelief in her voice, as if she still couldn't believe Batman had cared about such a relatively small matter.

* * *

_A Friday night and here she was, holding a stack of arrest reports in her arms as she climbed up the narrow stairwell like an errand girl. She couldn't help but drag her feet, trying to prolong the moment when she would have to face Jim. She dreaded the look she would see on his face, the same one she had been seeing for months._

_She knew how the interaction would play out. She would hand him the stack of files and he would thank her quietly before a tense silence would fall over them. She would try and avoid making eye contact with him out of fear of seeing the disappointment that she was sure would still be on his face at her almost-arrest. And then, when he would say nothing, she would make her way back down the stairs, leaving him alone to wait for Batman._

_But as she reached the exit to the roof, she realized the flaw in her plan. Batman was already on the roof. Jim had left the roof's door open just a crack, but it was enough two voices, one was easily recognizable as Jim's but the other was one she had heard only once before. It was a deep, rasping voice and she stood absolutely still as she listened to them talk._

_They were discussing the mob's new crime boss, but to Lucy, the details of their conversation were irrelevant. All that mattered was that it was Batman. She slowly moved closer to the door to hear what was going on better, but still made sure to stay out of sight._

_After a few minutes, the discussion between Batman and Jim seemed to come to an end and Lucy tensed as she prepared herself to make a quick exit if she heard Jim begin to leave the roof. However, she was surprised at the question Batman asked next._

"_How's the girl? Lucy?" he rasped and Lucy felt her heart stop at his words. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't this. She heard Jim sigh heavily and she pictured him adjusting his glasses as he always did when he was tired._

"_I don't know what to do with her anymore," Jim admitted and he didn't sound surprised at Batman's question. Because while she was sure Jim hadn't been expecting to be asked about her, she wondered whether or not he had hoped. "I've got her working here after school to keep her out of trouble, but if this doesn't work, then I don't know what else I can do."_

_Lucy's gaze fell to her shoes at Jim's answer. While he had never said it aloud, it had been written on his face for months. But although she knew he had been thinking it for so long, it didn't hurt any less to finally hear him say it._

"_She's a good kid, she really is. And she's so bright. She can do anything she sets her mind to. But she's acting so destructively now, and I don't know what to do," Jim confessed and Lucy bit her lip as she leaned back against the stairwell's wall before sinking down to sit with her knees pressed to her chest._

"_Her parents?" Batman asked, but from how deep his voice was, it came out as more of a growl. Lucy was almost surprised to hear that he was still there. From what Jim had told her about the masked vigilante, he was a man of few words and never seemed to stick around for too long._

"_Her dad was my partner when I was just a beat cop. He was killed during a robbery attempt when she was only 10. It wasn't easy on her. Hell, it wouldn't be easy on any kid, but she seemed to take it particularly hard," Jim replied, his voice sounding slightly far off, as if he were reliving the memory of that day. "Her father was her biggest hero and to learn that her hero had fallen, I think it damaged a part of her beyond repair."_

_There was a silence on the roof and Lucy wondered whether Batman had finally left. But she was more concerned with what Jim had said. They had never really talked about the effect her father's death had on her. Lucy had never wanted to discuss it simply because it still hurt too much._

"_Her mother?" the rough voice probed._

"_A mess," Jim scoffed. "World-renowned neurosurgeon, but when it comes to her daughter, she doesn't have a clue. She hasn't been the same since Michael's death and she pushes Lucy too hard. If she isn't ignoring her, she's criticizing her."_

_Lucy gripped her knees tightly to her chest as she listened to Jim. It was no small secret that there was no love lost between Jim and her mother, but he had always tried to keep from saying anything negative about Annie in front of Lucy. Annie, on the other hand, was never shy about her dislike for the man._

"_The robber? What happened to him?" Batman asked and Lucy could detect a slight hint of an emotion in his voice, an emotion she knew all too well; it was anger. _

"_Released on a technicality," Jim replied and Lucy knew he was shaking his head at the answer. "He had connections to the mob and the evidence somehow went 'missing.' The bastard walked. Lucy was in the courtroom when it happened. She watched her father's murderer go free."_

"_The system failed," Batman growled and Lucy leaned her head back against the wall. "Working outside of it is the only way to ensure the innocent get the justice they deserve."_

_Lucy was surprised when a tear made its way down her cheek. She quickly brushed it away as she absorbed Batman's words. Why hadn't there been anyone who made sure her father received justice? Batman sounded like he understood, like he had experienced some sort of injustice in his life and Lucy wondered if this was why had dressed up as a bat, getting the criminals the police were unable to._

"_I won't let the structures fail me again," Jim promised, his tone dark. "The people of Gotham deserve better. They deserve a justice system that does what it should, one that punishes the criminals and protects the victims. They don't deserve one where all it takes is a few well-placed bribes to let the bad guys go free."_

_There was no response and this time, Lucy knew Batman was gone. She slowly stood up before wiping away any last remnants of her tears. With a gently push on the already open door, she walked out onto the roof and Jim turned around to face her. _

"_I have these for you," Lucy told him as she held up the arrest reports and he gestured for her to bring them to him. She did as instructed and he took them without a word. He quickly flipped through them, making mental notes as he did so. _

"_Jim, do you think my dad would have died if Batman had been around then?" she asked and at her question, Jim looked up at her as a sad look fell on his face and he motioned for her to lean against the rooftop's edge next to him. She looked at him for a long moment, waiting for his answer, before complying._

"_I don't know if he would have been able to save your dad. But I do think that his killer would've been brought to justice," he answered slowly and Lucy nodded as she silently stood next to him. _

"_I'm really sorry for how I've been acting," she finally said after a long moment, her voice thick with unshed tears, and Jim wrapped his arm around her shoulders in an effort to comfort her. "I promise I'll stop. I promise I'll make you proud."_

"_I'll always be proud," Jim told her and she looked at him with wide eyes before wrapping her own arms around him in a warm embrace. "I love you, Lucy. I love you as if you were one of my own."_

"_I love you, too, Jim," she replied with a soft sniffle and Jim was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief. It seemed like maybe, just maybe, everything was going to be all right._

_Unbeknownst to the pair, a figure sat hidden in the shadows, observing them with a watchful eye. And when the night eventually drew to a close and the first rays of sunlight appeared in the early morning sky, when Batman turned back into Bruce Wayne, he couldn't help himself. Instead of letting his exhaustion overtake him, he sat up, scouring the police reports for Michael Thomas' murder. And as he read over the case and subsequent legal proceedings, Bruce felt a quiet rage building in his veins. Michael Thomas deserved justice, just like his own parents did. Right then, Bruce Wayne made another vow; there would be no more Michael Thomases, no more Martha Waynes, and no more Thomas Waynes. Not while Gotham was his to protect._

* * *

"Did you ever meet him?" she asked John when she had eventually turned away from the broken spotlight to face him again. John took a moment to think over her question. No, he had never technically met Batman, but he had met Bruce Wayne. And really, weren't they one-in-the same?

"Yeah," he finally answered, still sounding slightly unsure. "Briefly when I was just a kid."

He was relieved when Lucy merely nodded with a smile, instead of questioning him further.

"You sound like you still believe in him," John observed and Lucy briefly met his gaze before looking away. She didn't know how to respond, what was appropriate.

"I don't know," she shrugged. "Do you?"

"One hundred percent," he replied without hesitating and Lucy brought her eyes back up to meet his, a small smile forming on her lips. After a few moments, she dropped her gaze to look down at her watch before letting out a soft sigh.

"It's getting late. I should be heading out," she told him and he nodded before offering to walk her out. The climb down the stairs was silent, but this silence was devoid of the tension that had impregnated the silence that had fallen upon them as they had climbed up the stairs.

When they finally reached the exit to MCU, John held open the door for her. She gave him a nod of thanks before she stopped at top of the building's front steps.

"Have a good night," she said with a warm smile, which he was quick to return. "Be safe."

"The same goes for you," he replied and she nodded before making her way down the steps.

"Hey, John," she called once she reached the bottom of the steps and had turned back to face him. He gave her a questioning look, waiting for her to continue. "For what it's worth, I do like it when you stop by the ER."

"Really?" he asked, a smile growing on his face and she laughed softly before nodding.

"Yeah, it's always the highlight of my day," she answered before turning around and walking away down the sidewalk, leaving him standing dumbly at the entrance to MCU, a wide grin on his face.

* * *

Ok, _please_ forgive me for taking so long to update! I was taking a full course load this past semester and barely had time to do anything that didn't involve school or work. But, now that it's winter break, hopefully I'll be able to update this story some more. And I hope this long chapter made up for the huge delay in updating. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed and favorited. The next chapter really should be up within the next week. I hope everyone had a happy holidays!


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